Emergency transcripts evoke Sept 11 terror
Haunting images of the terror faced by trapped occupants of the World Trade Centre have been made public with the release of September 11 emergency call transcripts.
In the frenzy of phone calls that followed the attack on the first of the World Trade Centre towers on September 11, 2001, trapped workers begged in vain for an escape route. Screams and sirens echoed in the background as bodies dropped out of the sky.
“Yo, I’ve got dozens of bodies, people just jumping from the top of the building on to ... in front of One World Trade,” says a male caller. “People. Bodies are just coming from out of the sky. ... up top of the building.”
The haunting images emerged as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the trade centre, released 2,000 pages of transcripts from emergency calls and radio transmissions that provided the first glimpse into the confusing and devastating circumstances facing the agency and the building’s occupants in the moments after the attack.
There were references to howling sirens in the background, while callers repeatedly spoke over each other after the plane crashed into the first tower at 8.46am. Many callers were inaudible, yet the horror and hysteria of the morning jumps off the typed pages.
Jeannine McIntyre, whose police officer husband Donald died in the attack, saw the first tower fall and immediately called one of his co-workers. “Is my husband in that building that just collapsed?” she asked. “He was going up.”
She was assured that there were no reports of injured Port Authority police, but repeated her sad mantra four times: ”He was going up.”
From One World Trade Centre, Christine Olender the assistant manager of Windows on the World, made four phone calls pleading for help as 100 people remained trapped with her on the 106th floor of the 110-story tower. “We’re trying to get up to you, dear,” a police officer tried to reassure her.
In another section of the transcripts, a male caller from the 92nd floor of the second tower told a Port Authority police officer, “We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there’s an explosion.”
The officer asked if there was smoke on the floor, and the caller replied that there was not.
“Should we stay or should we not?” the caller asked.
“I would wait ’til further notice,” the officer replied.
“OK, all right,” the caller said. “Don’t evacuate.” He then hung up. A second, similar call – with the same police response – came in shortly after.
No one in the top floors of the tower survived after the second plane hit around the 80th floor shortly after 9am. The evacuation of Two World Trade Centre, and when it began, has been a source of some anguish to relatives of those who died. Some survivors have previously said they were advised to remain in the building.
The transcripts provide an unprecedented look at the extraordinarily difficult decisions faced by occupants and Port Authority personnel. They also illustrate the contradictory information within the Port Authority itself in the initial moments, with one conversation reflecting an early discussion of an evacuation of both buildings after the first plane hit.
The transcripts contained the final conversations of victims, including 33 port authority employees, from that morning.
“In general, they show people performing their duties very heroically and very professionally on a day of horror,” said port authority spokesman Greg Trevor.
The release of the transcripts comes two weeks before the second anniversary of the attacks that collapsed the twin towers and killed 2,792 people.
Some of the victims identified themselves by name on the tape, while others’ voices were recognised by co-workers. The transcripts include discussions involving 19 port authority police officers and 14 civilian workers, along with three people who did not work for the agency.
In all, the port authority lost 37 police officers and 47 civilian employees in the attack.
Some surviving family members were angered or upset by the transcripts’ release, which followed a court battle between the port authority and the New York Times. Others said the transcripts could provide valuable insight into the tragedy still others declined to even view the transcripts before their release to the media.
“It’s not that I don’t have an interest,” said Theresa Riccardelli, whose husband, Francis, was killed. “I can’t.”
The port authority agreed to release the transcripts after a New Jersey judge ruled it was bound to an agreement it made last month with The Times.
The port authority records are not the first recordings of radio transmissions to be made public. Last year, the agency released a 78-minute tape of fire department transmissions that included the voices of several lost firefighters.
Shortly after the attacks, unofficial tapes and transcripts of emergency calls from people in the towers were broadcast and published.
